The War of the Masters
|author = Primary contributors: ambassadormolari, gulberat, knightraider6, marcusdkane, patrickngo, takeshi6, sander233 Others: starswordc, |format = prose, shared universe|status = in progress}} The War of the Masters, or "Masterverse" for short, is a shared universe of fan fiction based out of ''STO'' s official forum. Premise The series takes place in an increasingly altered timeline from STO s actual canon and has one primary stipulation that @patrickngo calls the Rule of Natural Consequences or RONC: For every action taken, there will be multiple unexpected reactions. The stories deal equally heavily with the geopolitics of the Star Trek universe and with small-scale interactions, with a massive extradimensional invasion lurking just around every corner. While the storyline incorporates a mixture of TV canon, STO canon, and licensed fiction, in terms of story elements there are a number of diversions from official material. Rather than the Iconians as in STO, the true villain of the universe is a cabal of ancient -like intelligences called the Good Masters that has been influencing the course of galactic events for millions of years, most recently through various servitor species (of which the Iconians are but one, and they are jealous children). Also, most computer systems of the Federation make use of a type of artificial intelligence first developed in the 21st century and referred to as Atticus Unlimited. This serves as the AI-based operating system for all virtually Starfleet vessels, and may be elevated to sentience by application of a personality matrix (which may in turn express as a holographic avatar if the ship has that capability). The AU-series and the original ATTICUS (Advanced Transitive Turing Interface, Conscious Universal Sentience) are governed by a set of laws loosely based on the biblical Ten Commandments. The series features Cardassians and Bajorans, Humans and Gorn, Tellarites and Andorians, Remans and Romulans, Caitians and Ferasans (or Kzinti, if Larry Niven would let us say that...) all working (mostly) together to stop The War of Masters from consuming the known galaxy. Moab Confederacy A large amount of the Mastersverse material involves the Moab Confederacy, a disorganized, neo-capitalist "libertarian" state that originates in the secession of several minor colony worlds from the Federation after a poorly-deployed Starfleet fails to appropriately deal with Klingon and Orion raids in the border region. Numerous stories focus on the Confederacy and characters from the region, and Moab III, the de facto capital of the state, is the center of a major Fek'lhri incursion that kicks off the main story arc. It serves primarily as an opposite of the Federation composed predominantly of Humans; where the Federation is powerful, pacifistic, free, and equal, the Moab Confederacy is limited to primarily guerilla operations, militaristic, and places various economic and voting-rights restrictions upon its citizens. An ongoing reboot of the Mastersverse series includes a partial rewrite of the Moab Confederacy to present it in a less positive, more morally ambiguous manner. Continuity With * The 'verse takes place over a longer span of time than STO itself, with the Battle of Vega Colony set in 2408. The chronologically latest stories are set in 2413, with the "present day" of Masterverse Season 2 being 2412. * The storyline increasingly disregards STO canon beginning from STO season 8, with the Klingon Empire and the Federation signing an armistice at the beginning of A Sign at the Crossroads, without the prompting of an Undine invasion of Earth and Qo'noS. With other fan fiction continuities stated in the author's notes to "The Silence Ends" that the 'verse is an alternate timeline to his primary fan fiction series . Kanril Eleya has a counterpart in the Masterverse with her own story arc. See also *Category:The War of the Masters External links *The War of the Masters - Timeline on the Arc Forums Category:Fan fiction Category:Shared universes Category:The War of the Masters